And another review of Ehrman's book. This person does not mention me, so at least that's a change from the usual, "Let's hold up Acharya/Murdock as someone to spit on so that Ehrman and others will understand we're on the same page here and that I am much more scholarly than that hack."

But he does preface his remarks concerning various mythicists - not naming me, of course - with this comment:

Quote:

Granted, there have been many self-professed mythicists who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but then there are those who are quite versed in the materials pertaining to Christian origins and are very incisive and insightful.

Hmm, lessee, he next launches into Freke & Gandy, followed by the usual others. Since Ehrman's erroneous criticisms of me precede Freke & Gandy, I'm guessing that the first part of this guy's comment is aimed at me. Forgive me for being gun-shy at this point.

In the meantime, I'll agree with his assessment, except that I am one of the latter in his comment, while most of the armchair critics who have been assailing me are the former, since they do not and will not posses the same depth of knowledge of this subject that I have developed.

"Self-professed mythicists?" Oh, so now we have to have some sort of tribunal to pass out sanctioned positions within the field of mythicism? And which mythicists, therefore, are not "self-professed?" Did the Pope pronounce them to be so?

Bart Ehrman is a rock star. Well … as close to a rock star as a geeky Ivy League academic with tenure can get, anyway. After a long industrious, prolific, and distinguished career teaching the historical Jesus, he now finds himself in a most enviable position, one that other lesser-known New Testament scholars drooly aspire to. He is without question the best-selling author in the field of New Testament studies today, penning one successful (and usually provocative—at least to the evangelical mindset) book on Christian origins after another. His is an impressive (and lucrative) streak. Well-known among scholars, he's also become an ubiquitous presence in the talk-show circuit, in book-signing tours, on the radio, in documentaries that profile the latest reconstruction(s) of Jesus, and in all manner of media. He's big time, a go-to "professional expert", as ubiquitous now as Bishop Spong, Elaine Pagels, Dom Crossan, and N.T. Wright have been for a while.

His latest work is titled Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Its purported subject is mythicism, that is, the notion that the legend of Jesus might be just that, legendary, not based on a real historical personality, but instead on an essentially fictional character. Simply put (too simply, in my opinion): the notion that Jesus did not really exist.

I'd read several of his previous books before — Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet …, Misquoting Jesus, and Forged. — so I am familiar with his general take on the historical Jesus. He subscribes to the failed apocalyptic millennial prophet model which Schweitzer espoused at the turn of the century and Renan before him. I am also familiar with his narrative style, which I have always found, I must confess, to be excessively confident and a bit prosaic. This general rhetorical bent is continued in Did Jesus Exist.

Several highly critical reviews of this book have already appeared in the blogosphere, one of the most damning being that of Richard Carrier on his blog, which (rightly) focuses on the copious —the blatantly obvious, and even sophomoric— errors in the book, errors which only a very sloppy writer with little regard for accuracy would make. I won't rehash those here, but I recommend Carrier's review very much. Instead, I would like to highlight an aspect of Ehrman's book which I feel has been overlooked by many critics. From the very start, Ehrman readily admits that he is writing not for those who might find the Christ Myth theory tenable (he dismisses such people categorically as obstinate and beyond persuasion in the book's introduction). He writes instead for all those who are "seeking the truth" in these matters. Bracket for the moment the polemical presumptuousness and circularity of this preliminary statement of his intention (i.e. mythicists are not truth seekers or else they wouldn't be mythicists, right?). What I find troubling about this opening move that it is an indirect admission on his part that he has no intention of being thorough in his critique of mythicism. This is also evident in the length of his book (369 pages), the briefness of which is certainly not enough by itself to warrant condemnation; after all, John Dominic Crossan managed to skillfully demolish the gist of Raymond Brown's 1600+ page (two hefty volumes) opus, The Death of the Messiah, in less than 300 pages (in his Who Killed Jesus). Brevity is thus not necessarily a liability, but I am afraid that in the case of Ehrman's book, the length reflects his biased selectivity and subsequent methodological cavalierness, his predilection to dismiss mythicism uncritically as so much "conspiracy" mongering, picking and choosing only some issues from the mythicist literature that he can deal with in a superficial and cavalier manner. After all, a conspiracist is a conspiracist, right? Granted, there have been many self-professed mythicists who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but then there are those who are quite versed in the materials pertaining to Christian origins and are very incisive and insightful. Ehrman does seem to make some kind of distinction between the two, but only superficially, for, as one reads his assesments of scholars such as Wells and Price, one finds him using the same derisive undertones that he also uses on less-credible work (e.g. Freke-Gandy, et al). He even treats Earl Doherty, the author of probably the most thorough argument for a Christ Myth theory in existence with disdain and he (intentionally?) misrepresents and mischaracterizes many of Doherty's positions. Anyone who has read Doherty's book must conclude that Ehrman simply didn't, that he probably relied instead on time-saving synopses of it. Or, if he did read it, it must have been whilst preparing his taxes, mowing the lawn, watching a movie or something as distracting. Again, I won't rehash his mischaracterizations of Doherty in this review (Neil Godfrey has already done a much better job of analysing them in detail than I could on his blog — here, here, here, here, here, here, and here — that Godfrey sure is prolific .

Ehrman also explicitly states that he is not writing a "scholarly" work, that his aim is a book that will be accessible more to a general (pop) audience, dealing not with minutia but with general claims. This directly contradicts his publisher's misleading description of the book on Amazon's Kindle store, which reads: " […]Ehrman demolishes both the scholarly and popular mythicist arguments against the existence of Jesus […] ".Wait a minute, Ehrman demolishes the scholarly arguments?

Hell, as anyone who has extensively read the literature of The Tübingen School and read the Dutch Radicals (who had a profound influence on what would eventually become mythicism — Ehrman doesn't mention them except for Bruno Bauer in passing) and read the turn-of-the-century and newer wave of skeptics will realize, Ehrman doesn't even address the scholarly arguments! Of course, his intended audience, unfamiliar as they are with the pertinent materials, will casually assume that Ehrman has done the leg work necessary to make his case thoroughly. 'He is Bart Ehrman, after all. He must know what he's talking about.'

But put even that failure aside for the moment. Did Jesus Exist's main fault is prior to all of this and more simply stated. The Achilles' heel, to my eyes, the thing that makes me raise my eyebrow regarding this little book, the thing that puzzles me most about Ehrman's decision to do a pop book rather than a scholarly one is that logic dictates that the latter type is required first in order to lend credence to the former type. He's got it bass-akwards. How can one distribute authorative information to the masses, when one has not bothered to do a thorough review of the material in question first? He presents himself as authoritative but only reveals his laziness on this one.

This really has me scratching my head. Why has Bart Ehrman done such an irresponsible hack job at this stage in his career? I think that maybe his new-found rock star status has gone to his head.Needless to say, I think that this is arguably Ehrman's worst effort yet.

I'm sure that it will do very well, though. .

Given all that I have said above, I suggest that future editions of the book replace both the title and the cover with ones that are more appropriate to this book's actual content:

_________________Why suffer from Egyptoparallelophobia, when you can read Christ in Egypt? Try it - you'll like it:

Here's a new blog by Freethought Nation guest-writer and fellow mythicist Frank Zindler, editor of American Atheist Magazine and Director of American Atheist Press, rebutting the "historical" Jesus of Bart Ehrman's rendering in his recent book 'Did Jesus Exist?':

This was sent to me so, I thought I'd share it here. Maybe others will follow their lead? If so, here's the contact e-mail for Harper, feedback2@harpercollins.com , Ehrman's publisher for his book 'Did Jesus Exist?'. Perhaps Harper Publishing would offer to publish Acharya's 2nd edition to her Christ Conspiracy?

Quote:

Hello Harper Publishing,

I would like to launch an official complaint on a book titled "Did Jesus Exist?" by Bart Ehrman.

This type of sloppy work by Bart Ehrman, who's suppose to be a scholar, is absolutely not acceptable. Dr. Ehrman misrepresents the mythicists and their arguments he is addressing - I know this for a fact because I have their books too! But the worst treatment of all are his comments about Acharya S - he defames, smears and libels her and claims she "love to make things up."

Quote:

From Ehrman's book page 24:

"'Peter' is not only 'the rock' but also 'the cock,' or penis, as the word is used as slang to this day." Here Acharya shows (her own?) hand drawing of a man with a rooster head but with a large erect penis instead of a nose, with this description: "Bronze sculpture hidden in the Vatican treasure of the Cock, symbol of St. Peter" (295). [There is no penis-nosed statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican or anywhere else except in books like this, which love to make things up.]

Acharya S has responded to this libel in this blog:

Quote:

"In insinuating that I drew the image myself, Ehrman is indicating he did not notice the citation under it in my book, clearly referring to Barbara Walker's work. He is further implying that I simply make things up, and he is asserting with absolute certainty that no such bronze has existed in the Vatican, essentially stating that I fabricated the entire story. Contrary to these unseemly accusations, the facts are that I did not draw the image, the source of which was cited, and that, according to several writers, the image certainly is "hidden" in the Vatican, as I stated...."

The link gives free access to the front matter and first articles by Robert Price and Richard Carrier.

It is a damning critique. The bottom line here is that Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist? was just a political statement, and has no scholarly content. As Carrier's analysis makes plain, scholars were never the intended audience of Ehrman's slapdash polemical junk. Rather, Ehrman used his book as a cheap publicity stunt, so that Christians could say mythicism had been refuted, and so he would get a Newsweek cover story as a supposedly informed source.

He knew full well that the parlous state of religious 'debate' meant that the mass audience would never be exposed to anything so impolite as facts. That is why Ehrman does not deign to respond when he is exposed by Carrier as "lying to cover up his mistakes". It would be like asking the Pope if Jesus was born of a virgin.

I am looking forward to reading the rest of the critique, especially Acharya's essays. What I find most interesting is the psychoanalysis of writers like Ehrman who claim to be apostates but have this lingering irrational pious devotion to Jesus. Ehrman plays both sides of the street, claiming to be a scholar but using methods of propaganda.

"When New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman published Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, he not only attempted to prove the historical reality of a man called “Jesus of Nazareth,” he sharply criticized scholars who have sought to develop a new paradigm in the study of Christian origins—scholars who have claimed that Jesus was a mythical, not historical, figure, and that the traditional, Jesus-centered paradigm for studying the origins of Christianity must be replaced by an actual science of Christian origins. In the present volume, some of those scholars respond to Ehrman’s treatment of their research and findings, showing how he has either ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented their arguments. They present evidence that “Jesus of Nazareth” was no more historical than Osiris or Thor. Several contributors question not only the historicity of “Jesus of Nazareth,” they present evidence that the site of present-day Nazareth was not inhabited at the time Jesus and his family should have been living there."

I just read the quote by Dr. Price calling Bart Ehrman's comments on this issue about Acharya, "LIBEL":

"Such libel only reveals a total disinclination to do a fraction of the research manifest on any singe page of Acharya's works."

- Dr. Robert Price, page xxi of the book, 'Bart Erhman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?'

Richard Carrier defended Acharya on this issue in the book too as well as across several of his own blogs:

"At the very least I would expect Ehrman to have called the Vatican museum about this, and to have checked the literature on it, before arrogantly declaring no such object existed and implying Murdock made this up ... She did not make that up. The reason this error troubles me is that it is indicative of the carelessness and arrogance Ehrman exhibits throughout this book ... [Ehrman] often doesn’t check his facts, and clearly did little to no research. This makes the book extremely unreliable. A reader must ask, if he got this wrong, what other assertions in the book are false? And since making sure to get details like this right is the only useful purpose this book could have had, how can we credit this book as anything but a failure?"

"In his second reply he addressed one single point in my review. And here I believe there is reason to suspect he is lying about the Priapus statue. In my review of his book I called him out for saying (certainly very clearly implying) that Murdock “made up” the statue at the Vatican that she presents a drawing of and says is a symbol of Peter. He clearly did not call the Vatican about it or research the claim at all."

"[Bart Ehrman] said in a podcast (before my review and before Murdock herself exposed him on this) that the statue did not in any sense exist.

That’s right. On Homebrewed Christianity, April 3 (2012), “Bart Ehrman on Jesus’ Existence, Apocalypticism & Holy Week,” timestamp 20:30-21:10: at this point in that podcast, Ehrman says Acharya talks about Peter the cock and shows a drawing of a statue with a penis for a nose and claims this is in the Vatican museum, at which Ehrman declares, with laughter, “It’s just made up! There is no such s[tatue]… It’s just completely made up”."

[P.S. After publishing this post, it occurred to me to mention as well, that in fact he gives no argument at all in his book for why Murdock is wrong to conclude this is a statue of Peter. His only argument is that the statue doesn't exist. Which only makes sense as a rebuttal if indeed he meant the statue wholly did not exist. Otherwise, why is she wrong to conclude it symbolizes Peter? Ehrman doesn't say. This seems to me strong evidence that he is now lying about what he really thought and meant when writing the book. Because surely he would give a reason why she is wrong. So what reason did he give?]"

So, here we go again with more trash from some Bart Ehrman fan-boys who've obviously made no attempt to check into the matter, but instead, just take Errorman's word for it and regurgitate it since it suits their agenda. It just looks like these guys are JP Holding wannabes. One can quickly see the credentialism and intellectual dishonesty at play:

First of all, why are they singling out only Acharya? Because it's easier to launch a smear campaign against a single female author? What I find fascinating is the fact that they can find Acharya's resume but just can't find all the primary sources and scholar commentary on them throughout Acharya's work that proves them wrong. These guys clearly have never read a single book of hers, same as Bart Errorman.

"(Note that I do not say here or elsewhere that the bronze sculpture itself is a symbol of St. Peter, but only the cock or rooster, as in the story of Matthew 26:34, etc., in which Peter denies Christ three times before the cock crows. In several places elsewhere in my book I provide the citation for the cock/rooster being a symbol of St. Peter. I apologize for the ambiguity, but I was not in error here, despite the constant attempts to make me appear as such.)"

- Acharya S

It's a flat out lie to claim she: "dropped out one year into her MA"

So, do these guys also accept Ehrman's books like 'Forged' and 'Misquoting Jesus' where speaking about the gospels, he admits: "We don't have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies..." or the endless stream of forged words put in Jesus's mouth?

"I read two of her books. very thorough, well written and researched. Unlike this blog. Acharya is an intellectual heavyweight. The facts aren't there; Jesus definitely was not. Don't be jealous that a non-ivy leaguer put it all together, and a woman to boot! LOL"

They can read Richard Carrier's defense of Acharya S against Bart Ehrman in the post just above. They should also read:

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